Button Up Bandit Helps WA Bank Robbery Rate Soar

By |May 12, 2006

A man nicknamed the Button Up Bandit for his penchant for button-up shirts is helping make Washington State a bank robbery capital, says the Seattle Times. Button Up is a suspect in 10 of the 115 bank robberies in the state so far this year. If the present pace keeps up, said FBI agent Larry Carr, 2006 could be a record year for bank robberies in Washington, exceeding the previous record of 357 set in 1998.

Button Up now seems not to care about drawing attention to himself, Carr said, noting that during a robbery this week, he was wearing a brightly colored disco shirt, orange tinted sunglasses and a moustache the teller said she knew was fake because she could see glue on the robber’s face. California leads the nation in the number of annual bank robberies, but Washington – the country’s 14th-most populated state – is second only to Maryland in the number of bank robberies per 100,000 people.

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